certain degree of latitude was of no immediate importance. The business on hand was to complete their preparation, so that they might make their voyage at the favorable

season.

But while the Pilgrims at Leyden were doing their part, their agents in England encountered various disheartening difficulties. The first disappointment was that some of the friends there, who had been expected to go in the first expedition, contributing themselves and their families to the personal strength of the colony, and adding their means to the capital of the joint-stock company, "fell off, and would not go." They preferred the chances of persecution in their native country to the perils of the ocean and the wilderness. The faith and hope which glowed at Leyden had not kindled in them the enthusiasm needful to so great an enterprise.

Another disappointment came from "merchants and friends that had offered to adventure their money," but, when solicited to take stock in the company, "withdrew, and pretended many, excuses." All know how it is when men, partially committed, want to withdraw from an undertaking which they fear will not yield the dividends it seemed at the first view to promise. Some excused themselves because the colony was not to be planted in Guiana. Others must have security that it should be nowhere else than in Virginia. Others, again, had seen and heard enough of disastrous attempts at colonization under the Virginia Company, and would do nothing without a pledge that the colony should not be planted any where within the jurisdiction of that unlucky and ill-managed corporation. When these things were reported at Leyden, there were serious questionings. To men who had disposed of their property with reference to an immediate removal, the prospect was by no means encouraging. It was doubtful "what issue these things would come to." Should they forego the advantages which their patent from the Virginia Company gave them? It does not appear that there was any formal decision; but some of them, surely, had

read Captain John Smith's "Description of New England," and "at length the generality was swayed to the opinion" that "for the hope of present profit to be made by the fishing in that country," it was best for them to plant their colony there, and to negotiate afterward for a patent from the reincorporated Plymouth Council.

There was a much greater difficulty. The compact to be made between "the Adventurers" and "the Planters" was in those Articles of Agreement which had been drawn up at Leyden, and to which Weston had given, unequivocally, his approval and consent. But after the Pilgrims had committed themselves irretrievably, and when they were in the midst. of their preparation for the voyage, Weston and some others of the Adventurers insisted on a change. Their pretense was that the articles, as agreed upon at Leyden, were not satisfactory to some whose co-operation was important, and to whom the proposed change would be a sufficient inducement. But the sequel of the story seems to prove that Weston, at least, was one of those traders who take every possible advantage in a bargain. He knew that the Pilgrims were in his power; for they must either relinquish in despair the undertaking to which they had committed their fortunes and their lives, or submit to whatever conditions the Adventurers might impose upon them. The two agents saw that there was no help, and reluctantly submitted. Cushman,' always quick to discern the practicable and the inevitable, always prompt to act for himself or for others when action was required, took the responsibility. He, therefore, rather than Carver, had to bear the brunt of the “many querimonies and complaints" that came from his brethren at Leyden. It was natural for them to complain that he had been "making conditions fitter for thieves and bond-slaves than honest men;" but they, too, in their turn submitted to the

1 "A good man, and of special abilities in his kind, yet most unfit to deal for other men by reason of his singularity and too great indifferency for any conditions."-Robinson, in Bradford, p. 48.

inevitable. They felt, as he did, that it was better to proceed under "conditions fit for thieves and bond-slaves," than to abandon their enterprise after having gone so far.

The Pilgrims had hoped to make a better bargain with their friends in London; for, after all, the Adventurers generally were their friends, whatever might be true of Weston and some others, whose thoughts were of codfish and beaver, and who-under a show of sympathizing zeal-cared more for large profits on their investment than for the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ. Evidently, the influence which had demanded and obtained those new conditions was that of

the merchants" in the copartnership of Adventurers-the men of business, with whom "business was business," who regarded the whole affair as a commercial venture, and whose calculation was that the godliness of these self-sacrificing Pilgrims would yield to the company the promise of this life, while the other party would have for their share the promise of the life to come. Other members of the company-probably a numerical majority-were actuated by higher motives, and were more intent on planting a Christian colony than on making large profits. That Thomas Brewer who had been Brewster's partner in the printing-office at Leyden—and who, "being a man of good estate," was afterward denounced as "the general patron of the Kentish Brownists," and imprisoned fourteen years for his efforts in that cause1-was one of them. Others were like-minded with him. But Weston, by his forwardness, and perhaps by his greater acquaintance with commercial affairs, obtained a controlling influence; and the business of the company seems to have been managed for a time by his will. Thus it was that the Pilgrims found themselves under the necessity of submitting to conditions against which not only their judgment but their self-respect protested, and which they would not formally accept.

1

Waddington, "Hidden Church," p. 226. Brewer was one of Laud's prisoners, and was released by an order of the House of Commons, November 28, 1640.

1

Briefly stated, the plan was this. There were two distinct parties, joint proprietors of the intended colony. One party was the Adventurers, residing in London and its vicinity, who raised the capital to begin and supply the colony, and were to manage the affairs of the partnership considered as a commercial adventure. They were "about seventy-some gentlemen, some merchants, some handicraftsmen; some adventuring great sums, some small, as their estates and affections served." They were not a legal corporation, but were "knit together by a voluntary combination in a society without constraint or penalty, aiming to do good and to plant religion." The other party was the Planters, members of the Leyden church, with a few more, recruited from Essex and some other parts of England. According to the Articles of Agreement, the partnership between the Adventurers and Planters was a joint-stock company, to continue seven years unless dissolved earlier by general consent. The number of shares was unlimited, at ten pounds each. Every settler in the colony, if not less than sixteen years of age, was to be considered as having contributed one share; and, if self-provided with an outfit of not less than ten pounds' value, two shares. Every child over ten years of age and under sixteen was to be rated at half a share. There was to be no dividend of profits till the end of the seven years; and, in the mean time, every person in the colony was to be supported out of the common stock, and to labor under direction, without wages, for the benefit of the great partnership. At the winding up of the concern, all the capital, with the accumulated profits (including the colony itself, with its lands and houses, and not excepting even household goods), was to be divided among the stockholders in proportion to their shares.2

1

1 Captain John Smith's "General History of Virginia" (1624), quoted in Young, p. 81, 82.

2 Other articles in the contract were, that "such children as now go, and are under the age of ten years, have no other share in the division but only fifty acres of unmanured (uncleared) land;" and that "such persons as die

In other words, the Pilgrims-men, women, and little ones— were to be bond-servants to the company for seven years; in all that time, no man of them was to labor, spend, or save for himself or for his wife and children; and, at the end, he was to receive for his seven years of labor and hardship in the wilderness, and of peril by sea and land, just the same share of the total product with the man who had contributed ten pounds, and lived quietly all the while in London. was a hard bargain, but they submitted to the harsh conditions, because there was no other way in which they could pursue their heroic enterprise.

It

before the seven years be expired, their executors to have their part or share at the division, proportionately to the time of their life in the colony."

In drawing up the Articles of Agreement, the Pilgrims stipulated that the houses and the land under cultivation-especially gardens and home lotsshould be, at the end of the seven years' partnership, the property of the planters; and also that every man-especially such as had families-should be at liberty, two days in a week, to work for himself. These were the two stipulations which the merchants, against the protest of the Pilgrims, insisted on striking out of the contract.

T